McDowall at an Oscar luncheon in 1995

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Roddy McDowall, a British child actor who became a film star in "How Green Was My Valley" and "Lassie Come Home" and as an adult proved a versatile performer in theater, television and films that included "The Planet of the Apes," died Saturday.

He was 70 and had been diagnosed in April with cancer.

McDowall died at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, said Dennis Osborne, a friend who said he had cared for the actor in his final months.

"It was very peaceful," Osborne said. "It was just as he wanted it. It was exactly the way he planned."

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The 11-year-old McDowall was among the children evacuated to the United States after the Blitz, the German bombardment of London, began in 1940. He had already appeared in several British films and impressed Hollywood producers with his innocent face and precise diction.

McDowall's first U.S. film role was in Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt." The boy emerged as a star in John Ford's saga of Welsh coal miners, "How Green Was My Valley."

"The youngster may prove this studio's boy counterpart to Shirley Temple," Variety magazine said in a 1941 review.

"I can't say I was unhappy as a child actor in films, because I wasn't," McDowall said in a 1963 interview. "I had a particularly wonderful time. The only trouble was that by the time I got to be 17 or 18, Hollywood was still thinking of me in terms of what I had delivered at the age of 11.

McDowall, center, as Dr. Cornelius, starring with Charlton Heston and Kim Hunter in the 1968 movie "Planet of the Apes"

"They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York and started to study, because I knew I had to learn a lot about myself as an actor.

"Fortunately, I happened to go east at a time when live television was centered in New York. For six years I played every kind of role, from Mexican-Americans to Midwestern Americans. I did different roles on the stage: a Chicago boy in 'Compulsion' and a Southerner in 'No Time for Sergeants.'"

The ability to play almost any role led to McDowall's casting as a Roman emperor in "Cleopatra," a Bible figure in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and the scientist Cornelius in "The Planet of the Apes" and its sequels.

He was born Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall on September 17, 1928, in London. His father was Scottish, his mother Irish. Educated at St. Joseph's school, he made his film debut at 8 in "Murder in the Family."

Some of McDowall's 151 films include "Inside Daisy Clover," "Midas Run," "Five Card Stud," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," "The Poseidon Adventure," "Funny Lady," and "Only the Lonely."

He was also an accomplished photographer and published four books of celebrity portraits.

McDowall was survived by his sister, Virginia McDowall of Los Angeles, Osborne said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.